He lay on the bed, still holding the phone, and guided Melanie's head to his groin. She hesitated, then did what he wanted.
For a minute or so he lay still, enjoying the sensation.
Then he called information.
Melanie stopped what she was doing, but he grasped a coil of her hair and held her head in place. She hesitated, as if contemplating a protest; but after a moment she resumed.
That's better.
Priest got the number of the FBI in San Francisco and dialed it.
A man's voice answered: "FBI."
Inspiration came to Priest, as always. "This is radio station KCAR in Carson City, Dave Horlock speaking," he said. "We want to send a reporter to your press conference tomorrow. Could you give me the address and time?"
"It went out on the wire," the man said.
Lazy bastard. "I'm not in the office," Priest improvised. "And our reporter may have to leave early tomorrow."
"It's at twelve noon, here in the Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue."
"Do we need an invitation, or can our guy just show up?"
"There are no invitations. All he needs is his regular press accreditation."
"Thanks for your help."
"What station did you say you were from?"
Priest hung up.
Accreditation. How am I going to get around that?
Melanie stopped sucking and said: "I hope they didn't trace that call."
Priest was surprised. "Why would they?"
"I don't know. Maybe the FBI routinely trace all incoming calls."
He frowned. "Can they do that?"
"With computers, sure."
"Well, I wasn't on the line long enough."
"Priest, this isn't the sixties. It doesn't take time, the computer does it in nanoseconds. They just have to check the billing records to find out who owns the number that called at three minutes to one A.M."
Priest had not heard the word "nanosecond" before, but he could guess what it meant. Now he was worried. "Shit," he said. "Can they figure out where you are?"
"Only while the phone is on."
Priest hastily switched it off.
He was beginning to feel unnerved. He had been surprised too often today: by the recording of Star's voice, by the concept of psycholinguistic analysis, and now by the notion of computer tracing of phone calls. Was there anything else he had failed to anticipate?
He shook his head. He was thinking negatively. Caution and worry never got anything done. Imagination and nerve were his strengths. He would show up at the press conference tomorrow, talk his way in, and get a handle on what the enemy was up to.
Melanie lay back on the bed, closed her eyes, and said: "It's been a long day in the saddle."
Priest gazed at her body. He loved to look at her breasts. He liked the way they moved when she walked, with a side-to-side rhythm. He enjoyed seeing her pull a sweater off over her head, the reaching gesture making her tits stick up like pointing guns. He loved to watch her put on a brassiere and adjust her breasts inside the cups to get comfortable. Now, as she lay on her back, they were slightly flattened, bulging out sideways, and the nipples were soft in repose.
He needed to cleanse his mind of worry. The second-best way of doing that was meditation. The best was in front of him.
He knelt over her. When he kissed her breasts, she sighed contentedly and stroked his hair but did not open her eyes.
Priest saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. He glanced at the door and saw Star, wearing a purple silk robe. He smiled. He knew what she had in mind: she had done this sort of thing before. She raised her eyebrows in an expression of inquiry. Priest nodded assent. She came in and closed the door silently.
Priest sucked Melanie's pink nipple, drawing it into his mouth slowly with his lips, then teasing it with the tip of his tongue as he let it slide back out, again and again with a steady rhythm. She moaned in pleasure.
Star untied her robe and let it fall to the floor, then she stood watching, gently touching her own breasts. Her body was so different from Melanie's, the skin light tan where Melanie's was white, the hips and shoulders wider, the hair dark and thick where Melanie's was red gold and fine. After a few moments she leaned over and kissed Priest's ear, then ran her hand down his back, along his spine, and between his legs, stroking and squeezing.
He began to breathe faster.
Slowly, slowly. Savor the moment.
Star knelt beside the bed and began to caress Melanie's breast while Priest sucked it.
Melanie sensed that something was different. She stopped moaning. Her body stiffened, then she opened her eyes. When she saw Star, she let out a stifled scream.
Star smiled and continued to touch her. "Your body is very beautiful," she said in a low voice. Priest stared, entranced, as she leaned over and took Melanie's other breast into her mouth.
Melanie shoved them both away and sat upright. "No!" she said.
"Relax," Priest told her. "It's okay, really." He stroked her hair.
Star caressed the inside of Melanie's thigh. "You'll like it," she said. "A woman can do some things much better than a man. You'll see."
"No," Melanie said. She pressed her legs together tightly.
Priest could see that this was not going to work. He felt let down. He loved to see Star go down on another woman, driving her wild with pleasure. But Melanie was too spooked.
Star persisted. Her hand slid up Melanie's thigh, and her fingertips lightly brushed the tuft of red hair.
"No!" Melanie slapped Star's hand away.
It was a hard slap, and Star said: "Ow! What did you do that for?"
Melanie pushed Star aside and jumped off the bed. "Because you're fat and old and I don't want to have sex with you!"
Star gasped, and Priest winced.
Melanie stamped to the door and opened it. "Please!" she said. "Leave me alone!"
To Priest's surprise, Star began to cry. Indignantly he said: "Melanie!"
Before Melanie could reply, Star walked out.
Melanie slammed the door.
Priest said to her: "Wow, baby, that was mean."
She opened the door again. "You can go, too, if that's how you feel. Leave me alone!"
Priest was shocked. In twenty-five years no one had ever told him to leave a house here at the commune. Now he was being ordered out by a beautiful naked girl who was flushed with anger or excitement or both. To add to his humiliation, he had a hard-on like a flagpole.
Am I losing my grip?
The thought disturbed him. He could always get people to do what he wanted, especially here at the commune. He was so taken aback that he almost obeyed her. He walked to the door without speaking.
Then he realized he could not give in. He might never regain dominance if he let her defeat him now. And he needed Melanie under his control. She was crucial to the plan. He would not be able to trigger another earthquake without her help. He could not let her assert her independence in this way. She was too important.
He turned in the doorway and looked at her, standing naked, hands on her hips. What did she want? She had been in control today, in Owens Valley, because of her expertise, and that had given her the courage for this display of bad temper. But in her heart she did not want to be independent--she would not be here if she did. She preferred to be told what to do by someone with power. That was why she had married her professor. Having left him, she had taken up with another authority figure, the leader of a commune. She had revolted tonight because she did not want to share Priest with another woman. She was probably scared Star would take him away from her. But the last thing she wanted was for Priest to walk away.
He closed the door.
He crossed the little room in three paces and stood in front of her. She was still flushed with anger and breathing hard. "Lie down," he commanded.
She looked troubled, but she lay on the bed.
"Open your legs," he said.
After a momen
t she obeyed.
He lay on her. As he entered her, she suddenly put her arms around him and held him hard. He moved fast inside her, deliberately rough. She lifted her legs around his waist. He felt her teeth on his shoulder, biting. It hurt, but he liked it. She opened her mouth, breathing hard. "Ah, fuck," she said in a low, guttural voice. "Priest, you son of a bitch, I love you."
*
When Priest woke up, he went to Star's cabin.
She was lying on her side, eyes open, staring at the wall. When he sat on the bed beside her, she began to cry.
He kissed her tears. He was getting a hard-on. "Talk to me," he murmured.
"Did you know that Flower puts Dusty to bed?"
He had not been expecting that. What did it matter? "I didn't know," he said.
"I don't like it."
"Why not?" He tried not to sound irritated. Yesterday we triggered an earthquake, and today you're crying about the children? "It's a hell of a lot better than stealing movie posters in Silver City."
"But you have a new family," she burst out.
"What the heck does that mean?"
"You, and Melanie, and Flower, and Dusty. You're like a family. And there's no place in it for me, I don't fit."
"Sure you do," he said. "You're the mother of my child, and you're the woman I love. How could you not fit?"
"I felt so humiliated last night."
He stroked her breasts through the cotton of her nightshirt. She covered his hand with her own and pressed his palm hard against her body.
"The group is our family," he told her. "It's always been that way. We don't suffer with the hang-ups of the suburban mom-and-dad-and-two-kids unit." He was repeating the teachings he had gotten from her years ago. "We're one big family. We love the whole group, and everyone takes care of everyone else. This way, we don't have to lie to each other, or to ourselves, about sex. You can get it on with Oaktree, or Song, and I'll know you still care for me and our child."
"But you know something, Priest--no one ever rejected you or me before now."
There were no rules about who could have sex with whom, but of course no one was obliged to make love if they did not want to. However, now that he thought about it, Priest could not remember an occasion on which a woman had refused him. Obviously it had been the same for Star--until Melanie.
A feeling of panic crept over him. He had felt it several times in the last few weeks. It was the fear that the commune was collapsing, he was losing his grip, and everything he loved was in peril. It was like losing his balance, as if the floor started to move unpredictably and firm ground suddenly became shifting and unreliable, just as it had in Owens Valley yesterday. He fought to suppress his anxiety. He had to stay cool. Only he could keep everyone's loyalty and hold it all together. He had to stay cool.
He lay on the bed beside her and stroked her hair. "It'll be okay," he said. "We scared the shit out of Governor Robson yesterday. He'll do what we want, you'll see."
"Are you sure?"
He took both her breasts in his hands. He felt turned on. "Trust me," he murmured. He pressed against her so that she could feel his erection.
"Make love to me, Priest," she said.
He gave her his roguish grin. "How?"
She smiled back through her tears. "Any damn way you like."
*
She went to sleep afterward. Lying beside her, Priest worried over the problem of accreditation until he thought of the solution. Then he got up.
He went to the kids' bunkhouse and woke Flower. "I want you to go with me to San Francisco," he said. "Get dressed."
He made toast and orange juice for her in the deserted cookhouse. As she ate, he said: "You remember we talked about you being a writer? And you told me you'd like to work for a magazine?"
"Yes, Teen magazine," she said.
"Right."
"But you want me to write poetry so I can live here."
"And I still do, but today you're going to find out what it's like to be a reporter."
She looked happy. "Okay!"
"I'm taking you to an FBI press conference."
"FBI?"
"This is the kind of thing you have to do if you're a reporter."
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. She had picked up her mother's dislike of law enforcement people. "I never read about the FBI in Teen."
"Well, Leonardo DiCaprio isn't giving a press conference today, I checked."
She grinned sheepishly. "Too bad."
"But if you just ask the kinds of questions a reporter from Teen would think of, you'll be fine."
She nodded thoughtfully. "What's the press conference about?"
"A group who claim they caused an earthquake. Now, I don't want you to tell everyone about this. It has to be a secret, okay?"
"Okay."
He would tell the Rice Eaters about it when he got back, he decided. "It's all right to talk to Mom and Melanie about it, and Oaktree and Song and Aneth and Paul Beale, but no one else. That's really important."
"Gotcha."
He knew he was taking a crazy risk. If things went wrong, he could lose everything. He might even be arrested in front of his daughter. This could end up being the worst day of her life. But mad risks had always been his style.
When he had proposed planting the grapevines, Star had pointed out that they held their land on a one-year lease. They could break their backs digging and planting and never see the fruits of their labor. She had argued that they should negotiate a ten-year lease before starting work. It sounded sensible, but Priest had known it would be fatal. If they postponed the start, they would never do it. He had persuaded them to take the risk. At the end of that year, the commune had become a community. And the government had renewed Star's lease--that year and every year, until now.
He thought about putting on the navy blue suit. However, it was so old-fashioned that it would be conspicuous in San Francisco, so he wore his usual blue jeans. Although it was warm, he put on a T-shirt and a checked flannel shirt with a long tail, which he wore untucked. From the tool shed he took a heavy knife with a four-inch blade in a neat leather sheath. He stuck it in the waistband of his jeans, at the back, where it was concealed by the tail of his shirt.
He was high on adrenaline throughout the four-hour drive to San Francisco. He had nightmare visions: the two of them being arrested, himself bundled off to a jail cell, Flower sitting alone in an interrogation room at FBI headquarters, being questioned about her parents. But fear gave him a buzz.
They reached the city at eleven A.M. They left the car in a parking lot on Golden Gate. At a drugstore, Priest bought Flower a spiral-bound notebook and two pencils. Then he took her to a coffee shop. While she was drinking her soda, he said, "I'll be right back," and stepped outside.
He walked toward Union Square, scanning the faces of passersby, searching for a man who looked like him. The streets were busy with shoppers, and he had hundreds of faces to pick from. He saw a man with a thin face and dark hair studying the menu outside a restaurant, and for a moment he thought he had found his victim. Feeling wire-taut with tension, he watched for a few seconds; then the guy turned around and Priest saw that his right eye was permanently closed by some kind of injury.
Disappointed, Priest walked on. It was not easy. There were plenty of dark men in their forties, but most of them were twenty or thirty pounds heavier than Priest. He saw another likely candidate, but the guy had a camera around his neck. A tourist was no good: Priest needed someone with local credentials. This is one of the greatest shopping centers in the world, and it's Saturday morning: there has to be one man here who looks like me.
He checked his watch: eleven-thirty. He was running out of time.
At last he struck lucky: a thin-faced guy of about fifty, wearing large-framed glasses, walking briskly. He was dressed in navy slacks and a green polo shirt but carried a worn tan attache case, and looked miserable: Priest guessed he was going to the office to do some Saturday catching up. Now
I need his wallet. Priest followed him around a corner, psyching himself up, waiting for an opportunity.
I'm angry, I'm desperate, I'm a crazy man escaped from the asylum, I've got to have twenty bucks for a fix, I hate everyone, I want to slash and kill, I'm mad, mad, mad ...
The man walked past the lot where the 'Cuda was parked and turned into a street of old office buildings. For a moment there was no one else in sight. Priest drew the knife, then ran up to him and said: "Hey!"
The man stopped reflexively and turned.
Priest grabbed the guy by the shirt, shoved the knife in front of his face, and screamed: "GIMME YOUR FUCKIN' WALLET OR I'LL SLIT YOUR FUCKIN' THROAT!"
The guy should have collapsed in terror, but he did not. Jesus, he's a tough guy. His face showed anger, not fear.
Staring into his eyes, Priest read the thought It's only one guy, and he doesn't have a gun.
Priest hesitated, suddenly fearful. Shit, I can't afford for this to go wrong. There was a split-second standoff. A casually dressed man with a briefcase heading for work on Saturday morning ... could he be a police detective?
But it was too late now for second thoughts. Before the guy could move, Priest flicked the blade across his cheek, drawing a thin two-inch line of red blood just below the right lens of his spectacles.
The man's courage evaporated, and all thought of resistance left him. His eyes widened in fear, and his body seemed to sag. "Okay! Okay!" he said in a high-pitched, shaky voice.
Not a cop, after all.
Priest screamed: "NOW! NOW! GIMME IT NOW!"
"It's in my case...."
Priest grabbed the briefcase from the man's hand. At the last minute he decided to take the guy's glasses, too. He snatched them off his face, turned around, and ran away.
At the corner he looked back. The guy was throwing up on the sidewalk.
Priest turned right. He dropped his knife into a garbage bin and walked on. At the next corner he stopped by a building site and opened the case. Inside was a file folder, a notebook and some pens, a paper package that looked as if it contained a sandwich, and a leather billfold. Priest took the billfold and threw the case over the fence into a builder's skip.
He returned to the coffee shop and sat down with Flower. His coffee was still warm. I haven't lost the touch. Thirty years since I last did that, but I can still scare the shit out of people. Way to go, Ricky.